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Market Your Photography Business So You Can Travel and Live Anywhere

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Many people dream of the day they can quit their jobs, throw a camera in a bag and travel the world. We love to travel and experience new things. Taking pictures is a way to remember each step of the way. And if you can get paid for doing it as well, why not start today.

If traveling the world with a camera in hand has always been on your bucket list, the only way to make your dreams come true is to do it.

Self Promotion

With many career paths, they can be time consuming and expensive. If you open up a retail store, you are pretty well locking yourself into a location.

But if you want to be a travel photographer, the only investment is camera equipment, a computer, and a website. Then you can create your images and load them up to your site for any type of promotion you choose.

Need some inspiration? Check out Stuck In Customs, one of the best travel photography sites online.

Build Your Portfolio

With WordPress, you can build a sophisticated web presence in no time. You can add to it anywhere in the world you have Internet access. And you can connect it up with many different sites to give you even more exposure – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Flickr, YouTube and SmugMug.

In years past, you had to connect with people on a personal or one to one level. Now everything can be done via online. If you are connected to editors through Twitter, you can communicate on your time. If they run across your Pinterest boards, they can evaluate you on their time. If you build a SmugMug portfolio and gain an incredible following, you’ll have more traffic than you can handle. And it will all be something you can build when you have the time – leaving you free to shoot on your time.

Dig Deeper: The 10 Advantages Of WordPress For Designing Your Photography Site [Read more...]

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10 Things You May Not Have Know About Copyrights

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10. In most cases, a registered copyright will last your life plus 70 years. There are however exceptions to the rule. Cornell has a great resource page showing the common and special situations.

9. If you’ve asked for a copyright, you don’t need to renew it, as long as the work was created after January 1, 1978. Before this date renewal is optional but advised after 28 years.

8. Fair Use is a term commonly used when people use works in different ways. The Copyright office has created a doctrine of “fair use” by developing a substantial number of court decisions on the topic, using it to set precedence in current and future cases. The distinction between fair use and infringement is unclear and not easily defined. The most important thing to keep in mind is that most disagreements when it comes to fair use are settled in a court of law on a case by case basis. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Commercial Photography Tagged With: , , , ,

What Makes A Wedding Photojournalist Different Than A Wedding Photographer?

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What is the difference between wedding photojournalism and wedding photography? As we learned early on in our career, it’s a blurred line.

For many photographers, photojournalism simply means capturing the event as it happens. They pose the formals, and along the way throw in a few candids for good measure. Then they use those candids to promote themselves as a “photojournalist”.

But is that really photojournalism?

Not by my definition. I like how the Wedding Photojournalist Association says it:

What sets our members apart in the industry is their candid, documentary approach – a distinctly artistic vision toward wedding photography.

We offer a new perspective on wedding photography – quietly capturing the real moments as they happen for the bride and groom. It is our goal to use photography to tell the story of your wedding day, not dictate it for you.

Its How You Approach It

A candid is simply a photograph taken without the subject’s knowledge. And while a great deal of wedding images can be classified as candids, a selection of candids doesn’t mean you are a photojournalist. [Read more...]

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Wedding Photography 2012: Is A Photo Booth In Your Future?

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Add a photo booth to your 2012 weddings – go into detail about what they do, what the cost, how to promote etc

What do brides of 2012 want?

If you are targeting wedding clients, it’s the first place to start when deciding how to market your photography to newly engaged couples.

In too many cases photographers are creating packages that have been around for decades, offering services that are more than familiar, and not giving a newly engaged couple any more options than couples had 10, 20 or even 30 years ago.

And because more photographers are out there than ever, it’s a tough road to head down.

Head back in time 20 years and people were spending lavishly on weddings. But now that’s just not the case.

I found a great article that describes the new generation of wedding professionals in detail.

  • People are getting married later in life, and in many cases have a variety of commitments, such as houses and children, already in place.
  • The middle class is being eroded, meaning they don’t have the resources they once had. Borrowing against equity on a house or using credit cards is no longer the norm.
  • More players are in the industry thanks to the huge amounts of job losses over the past few years. They don’t have the experience or the investment that the pros do – but they do leave the consumer puzzled and uneducated about what high quality really means.

You simply can’t ignore what is happening in the industry. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Wedding Photography Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

7 Places To Display Your Fine Art Photography

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Even if you are a full time photographer photographing commercial work, portraits or weddings, you’ve probably dreamed of having your best work on display for the world to see. As photography is more prevalent in our lives than ever, there are more places to display your work than ever before. Yes, you might have more competition for the few spots out there. But imagine how you will feel when you’re work is accepted?

Whether for display, or to sell as a piece of fine art, consider these places in your community as opportunities waiting for you.

Commercial Galleries

Probably the easiest galleries to find, and what people most commonly think of when you mention an art gallery, is the for profit commercial gallery. These galleries accept work that meets their clients’ expectations, and makes a profit when a piece is sold to a collector. A commercial gallery will offer you a contracted time period to represent you and show your work, and will split the sales price with you if a sale is made. Exhibitions are usually scheduled well in advance – sometimes 12 months or more – to prepare and market for the event.

 

Co-Op Galleries

Many galleries out there are associated with an artist and a group. In order to show your work, you have to have a membership into the group. Each membership has different requirements for acceptance, so shop around and find a group that meets your needs, as well as accepts your type of work. In some cases you will have to work at the gallery as well, so be sure its accessible to you and your schedule. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Fine Art Photography Tagged With: , ,

Ethics And The Never Ending Pursuit Of Wedding Photography

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Things always seem to work in trends. When one person has a question, comment or rant on a a particular subject or niche, I get the in multiples within that same niche.

That’s the way its worked lately with the niche of wedding photography, and in today’s post I thought I would share a couple of comments I’ve received in the past week on wedding photography that really opened my eyes.  Take a look:

“This past weekend we shot a wedding in Seattle, and had a girl there with a Rebel shooting. I didn’t mind, in fact, I got her involved instead of her stuffing herself in a corner and avoiding eye contact with me at all costs (because she knew what she was doing was incredibly disrespectful.) But that all changed when I jumped on to facebook to upload some sneak peeks for the bride and groom, only to find pictures already up…..and logo’d…..with the name of her photography business.

And the bride and groom signed a contract stating we would be the only photographers at the wedding.

Half of me wants to send a legalistic letter saying take em down right now, or die a legal death. The other half wants to take this poor, misguided stay-at-home part-time photographer with a kit lens to the side and explain having a Rebel doesn’t make you a business. Snapping someone’s wedding doesn’t make you a photographer. And if you’re willing to put a shot that you snuck of the first look up on facebook that you took through a window with glare and reflections….then….well….I feel bad for you.
*rant ended*” ~Stephanie

Stephanie has every reason to rant. This completely gets into a legal issue of what’s right and wrong, and how far some people are willing to go. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Wedding Photography Tagged With: , , , , ,

Toot Your Own Horn: 7 Steps to Maximize Visibility After You’ve Been Published

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Guest Post by Lara White

When you see your work published, it feels incredible. It’s an amazing validation of the work you do and the impact you are having in your field. But what does it really do for your business? Do you start to fill all those empty Saturdays because you have a featured wedding in the latest wedding magazine? Sadly, no. While it is great to get published, if you want to see results, you need to take action. It’s not enough to simply have your name in tiny, tiny print next to a photo in a magazine. Most brides will not even see that. Brides are glancing through magazines for ideas mostly.

Once you’ve been published, that is only the beginning. You now have a tool that you can use to promote yourself and your business. No one else is going to do it for you.

Create a PDF

We purchased a scanner several years ago so we could scan magazine features and covers to make pdfs to share with brides and the vendor team responsible. You never know, the bride may email the pdf to all her friends and family that attended the wedding, or better yet, her unmarried friends. Hopefully vendors will do the same, or put the feature on their own websites and blogs.

Besides helping facilitate further spread of your news via the bride and the vendors, you also signal to the vendor team that not only do you get press coverage when you photograph and event, you also help them build up their press coverage by providing them with the tools they need to self-promote as well. I’ve seen other vendors proudly frame and display these editorial features like awards in their shops. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Wedding Photography Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Niche Your Business? 10 Ways People Get It Wrong

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When you first thought about going into business for yourself, chances are you had a “vision”. You saw yourself doing one type of photography again and again – something that would make you happy every single day. That is the idea around niching. A niche is an activity specially suited to a person’s interests, abilities or nature. It’s a special area of demand for a product or service. And while niching may seem easy to accomplish, many people simply don’t understand the concept, and end up doing it wrong. And if you don’t niche in the right way, your chances of success aren’t high. Here are some tips to help you niche the right way.

Choose A Niche That’s Too Wide

You love people. You’ve always wanted a studio. So you decide to niche yourself as a portrait photographer. Is that a great niche? While it may sound like a great way to specialize your business, portrait photography is still broad. Think of all the different ways you can further split this niche out: baby, family, seniors, school, pets, business. Because you market each of these specialties in different ways, to different people, in different marketplaces, it still leaves you at a disadvantage when it comes to marketing. The clearer you become with who you want to photograph, the easier it is to build a business. [Read more...]

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3 Reasons Most Wedding Photographers Fail

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We’re one of the few photography companies that actually created a lucrative business out of catering to the wedding industry. In less than two years, we went from a general photography company to one that specialized in wedding photography, making well into the Six Figure level. Then we doubled our business. And again.

But it wasn’t always like that.

In the beginning, we did what every other wedding photographer does.

We decided to offer wedding related services. We created our first wedding brochure. And we charged and shot pretty much like every other wedding photographer out there.

Dig Deeper: Doubt To Confidence: What Was Your Magical Moment?

But very quickly something started to change.

We studied what the top names in the industry were doing. We learned from the best. And we quickly changed and grew. And we discovered 3 things that most wedding photographers did that were actually holding them back. [Read more...]

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3 Mistakes Photographers Make When Selling Wedding Albums

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If you photograph weddings, you probably have a package or two in which you offer an album. And in many cases, your package probably looks something like this:

  • Up to 5 hours of photography
  • Over 200 images on copyright-free CD
  • 20 page bridal album
  • 11×14 Portrait Print
  • Online gallery of your wedding photos to share with friends and family worldwide

The bride knows she will receive a CD full of images, and be able to view the images online, and share them with her family and friends from around the world.

She also knows she can take weeks or even months to select a few of her favorites, and have them put into a bridal album.

But it doesn’t matter what photos she selects, how they fit together, or how the will look side by side. She simply selects her favorites, and you as the photographer will force them into some type of order, and create an album from the final selection.

I’ve seen books like this.

An image of the bride walking down the aisle is set next to a formal of the bride outside at the reception. The first dance is placed along side of the couple kissing by the limo.

In other words, there is no rhyme or reason to the way the album is put together; it’s simply a hodgepodge of images thrown together to form a book of pictures.

Wedding albums aren’t meant to be a book of pictures. They are meant to be the story of the wedding day.

First Mistake: The Photographer Lets The Bride Make The Selection

If you allow a bride to choose her favorite images, she thinks from an individual level, not from a cumulative factor. She can’t see an album because it hasn’t happened yet. She doesn’t imagine how they will look together side by side; she simply chooses based on her best expressions, and her favorite moments.

When she receives the album, it will simply go on the shelf because it’s a book of pictures. It has no meaning – its just 20+ large images from her event.

As a photographer, you should be photographing a wedding to tell the story of the day. With wedding photography, photos work together in order to bring you back to the memories of the event itself. A formal out in the gardens is great, but it’s “just” a photo of the bride and groom. But when you have a series of images of the bride and groom walking through the gardens, talking with their flower girl, sneaking kisses along the way, it becomes a story – and a memory.

As a photographer, you need to think in story format. You need to take one photograph, and then another, and another – all to work together and provide an intimate look into the event itself. Its up to you to tell the story, and present the images in such a way that the bride and groom relive the wedding again and again. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Wedding Photography Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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